Fact check: Nikki Haley didn’t ‘white-wash’ her name. It’s Punjabi
The claim: Nikki Haley changed her name
Claims that former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley changed her name have resurfaced across social media after she tweeted about racial division in the United States.
The Facebook post, shared on May 2, is an image of a controversial tweet by Haley where she voiced her objection to The New York Times’ 1619 project and “wokeism.”
(“Wokeism” refers to being well informed or “alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which added “woke” in 2017.)
The reply shown on the post is from a parody account, which accused Haley of “white-washing” her name to “get ahead in ‘non-racist’ America.”
“You thought Nikki would give you a better chance than the name Nimrata Randhawa,” the reply says.
Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, was born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. She has received criticism about not using her first name since as early as 2016, with people claiming she changed her name to “get ahead” in politics.
By May 5, the post by Occupy Democrats, an advocacy group created to provide “an online counterbalance to the Republican ‘Tea Party,'” had been shared 8,400 times.
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USA TODAY reached out to the poster for comment.
But Haley hasn’t legally changed her name. She goes by her middle name: Nikki.
Haley has gone by her middle name since high school, before politics
The post claims Haley “white-washed” her name, going from Nimarata to Nikki, to boost her political career. But “Nikki” is Haley’s legal middle name as it appears on her birth certificate, according to her 2018 tweet.
Some users replied to Haley’s controversial tweet saying that using her “real name” would end her political career, and that “Nikki” is more widely accepted than “Nimarata” because it doesn’t sound foreign.
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But Haley’s use of her middle name as a first name predates her political career.
Haley has gone by “Nikki” since high school, a 2010 Roll Call article featuring her yearbook pictures says. Her yearbook photo has her listed by her full name: “Nimarata Nikki Randhawa.”
ORG XMIT: SCCOL101 Nikki Haley waves with her family in Columbia, S.C. during an election night gathering on Tuesday, June 8, 2010. Haley brushed aside unproven accusations of extramarital affairs to win a spot in a runoff Tuesday for the GOP nomination for governor, nearly winning the nomination outright in a bid to become the first woman to hold the office. (AP Photo/Rich Glickstein/The State) (Photo: Rich Glickstein, The State via AP)
While it’s a common nickname for women named “Nichole” in the United States, “Nikki” is also a common Punjabi name, the region in India her parents migrated from.
In a tweet responding to implications she white-washed her name from activist Bree Newsome, Haley said “Nikki” means “little one” in Punjabi.
“Nikki” is often used “as a term of endearment for the youngest girl in a Sikh family,” according to British-Indian writer Tunku Varadarajan, who wrote an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal in 2020 about Haley’s name controversy. Haley is the youngest girl in her family.
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As her name hasn’t been altered, Haley didn’t white-wash or change her name; she simply goes by her middle name.
Haley adopted husband’s last name
Haley’s last name has also been controversial. But the explanation for the change is far from unusual.
She got married.
Haley adopted her husband’s last name, Michael Haley, when they wed in 1996, becoming Nikki Haley at age 26 — 6 years before she entered the political arena.
While more women have chosen to keep their maiden names once they marry, around 70% of women choose to adopt their husband’s name, a study by The New York Times found in 2015.
Our rating: False
We rate claims that Haley white-washed her name FALSE, based on our research. Haley has gone by “Nikki,” her legal middle name, since high school, which means she started using it years before she started her political career at 32. Since it’s also a common Indian name, claims that she anglicized, or white-washed, her name are inaccurate.
Our fact-check sources:
- Mic, Jan. 13, 2016, Nikki Haley’s Real Name and Other Politicians Who Changed Theirs
- Occupy Democrats, accessed May 3, “About Us”
- Oxford English Dictionary, accessed May 3, New words notes June 2017
- Vox, Oct. 9, 2020, A history of “wokeness”
- Merriam-Webster, accessed May 3, “Whitewash”
- Ambassador Nikki Haley (Archive), May 20, 2018, tweet
- Roll Call, Nov. 12, 2010, Flashback: Nikki Haley’s Senior Class Photo
- Nikki Haley’s yearbook picture, accessed May 3
- Bree Newsome, April 30, tweet
- The New York Times, Aug. 25, 2020, Full Transcript: Nikki Haley’s R.N.C. Speech
- Nikki Haley, April 30, tweet
- Nikki Haley, April 30, tweet
- American Enterprise Institute, accessed May 4, Tunku Varadarajan
- Archive.Today: Wall Street Journal Opinion, Aug. 27, 2020, The Smearing of Nikki Haley
- New York Times, June 27, 2015, Maiden Names, on the Rise Again
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Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.
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